What Are You Practising Now?

[Christian Miller]

Recently I’ve been practicing tenor banjo, just playing the through rep in various positions, comping, some solo arrangements.

Some BH stuff on guitar

Also I’m working out how Allemandes work

It changes all the time

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[James W]

Change of plan from the OP.

I've put to one side learning my own composition. I'm now doing a deep dive into ATTYA. See how far I can get with it by really zooming in to it over the next two or three months.

[pan60]

working on understanding the theory sight reading and Stella
and what ever else Peter puts on me : )

[AllanAllen]

Blues for Alice.

[pauln]

Also I’m working out how Allemandes work

Dance music!

[frabarmus]

In Your Own Sweet Way, the modal Ab sus Intro/Interlude, to start with, figuring out different voice-combinations of Ab harmonised Mixolydian mode).

[frabarmus]

Recently I’ve been practicing tenor banjo, just playing the through rep in various positions, comping, some solo arrangements.

Some BH stuff on guitar

Also I’m working out how Allemandes work

It changes all the time

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I've got an Irish Tenor Banjo (tuned in perfect fifths).

This is me on it, a few years ago...

[Christian Miller]

Dance music!

German dance music. The ultimate combination


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[Christian Miller]

I've got an Irish Tenor Banjo (tuned in perfect fifths).

This is me on it, a few years ago...

Well I think that sounds brilliant. I shall add you to the mage category alongside our Rob. I’d like to get into single note stuff - Irish stuff as well as maybe a bit of Bach - but that can only done when the missus is out of the house because three notes of that courante she will shout ‘stop it! It hurts us!!’ from the next room

mostly trad jazz stuff at the moment for me.

Open back is nice. Your banjo looks very much like mine apart from that I had to get a resonator for gigs.

Do you play any violin family instruments or did you learn the tuning for banjo?

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[frabarmus]

Well I think that sounds brilliant. I shall add you to the mage category alongside our Rob. I’d like to get into single note stuff - Irish stuff as well as maybe a bit of Bach - but that can only done when the missus is out of the house because three notes of that courante she will shout ‘stop it! It hurts us!!’ from the next room

mostly trad jazz stuff at the moment for me.

Open back is nice. Your banjo looks very much like mine apart from that I had to get a resonator for gigs.

Do you play any violin family instruments or did you learn the tuning for banjo?

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Thanks!

I Picked up a cheap "Harmony" American mandolin (which I still have) back in 1980 or so and started playing it by ear. That's how I got used to a tuning in fifths...

For the Courante, I got the score of the Cello Suites for violin and that's how I've learned it, slowly reading and memorising...

[AllanAllen]

You guys are making me want to buy a banjo again...

[frabarmus]

In Your Own Sweet Way, the modal Ab sus Intro/Interlude, to start with, figuring out different voice-combinations of Ab harmonised Mixolydian mode).

I've chosen 5 different 4-note voice-combinations ( these are close, “pianistic” voicings, some of which, though, have a “quartal flavour" to them) for a harmonised Mixolydian mode in Ab. Intended for comping use, once I'll have them smoothely in my fingers, thinking of the Intro/Interlude of In YourOwn Sweet Way. Next thing I should do, though, is learn them ln 12keys. The following, further step will then be to harmonise and learn the head of the tune and then... (etc. etc. etc.)

[AllanAllen]

I've chosen 5 different 4-note voice-combinations ( these are close, “pianistic” voicings, some of which, though, have a “quartal flavour" to them) for a harmonised Mixolydian mode in Ab. Intended for comping use, once I'll have them smoothely in my fingers, thinking of the Intro/Interlude of In YourOwn Sweet Way. Next thing I should do, though, is learn them ln 12keys. The following, further step will then be to harmonise and learn the head of the tune and then... (etc. etc. etc.)

Sounds cool, is the goal for each grip to be interchangeable like RPjazz’s Melodic Minor scale of chords?

[rpjazzguitar]

Tunes. More comping than soloing, trying to make more use of passing chords.

[rpjazzguitar]

Sounds cool, is the goal for each grip to be interchangeable like RPjazz’s Melodic Minor scale of chords?

I got it right out of Mark Levine's Jazz Theory Book.

Levine makes the point that the voicings are all interchangeable because the melodic minor scale has no avoid note.

If you try it with the major scale, you get 4ths on both the tonic and dominant. Those "avoid" notes can sound great or can add ambiguity to things you might prefer to be unambiguous.

I apologize if the use of the term "avoid note" stirs up another ruckus.

[frabarmus]

Sounds cool, is the goal for each grip to be interchangeable like RPjazz’s Melodic Minor scale of chords?

Yes (I guess, as I haven't seen RP's Melodic Minor scale of chords).

I haven't done it, yet, with the Melodic Minor... that's another task on my to do list.

[Christian Miller]

I got it right out of Mark Levine's Jazz Theory Book.

Levine makes the point that the voicings are all interchangeable because the melodic minor scale has no avoid note.

If you try it with the major scale, you get 4ths on both the tonic and dominant. Those "avoid" notes can sound great or can add ambiguity to things you might prefer to be unambiguous.

I apologize if the use of the term "avoid note" stirs up another ruckus.

Yeah it does make things a bit less functional. But that’s been part of jazz since the early days - it’s not classical music. You can hear Prez and Charlie Christian playing F Fm on G7 or whatever. Tristano taught those options.

A bit more background:

The 4th on a dominant chord does not have the same dissonant effect as a 4th on the major seventh.

Compare this
5 x 6 6 3 x (Amaj7add11)
To this
5 x 5 6 3 x (A7add11)

The latter is much less dissonant, right? This is a voicing players like Brad Mehldau use.

The reason why some educators say the 4th is an avoid note is more to do with the role of that note in the II V I cadence.

So they will say don’t use 13 on the II-7 chord because it ‘gives away the sound of the dominant chord.’ Not because it sounds dissonant.

Conversely, we want to make sure that the V chord sounds distinct from the II so we don’t use the 4 so much on that chord. It’s not that it’s dissonant - it just changes the function of that chord to be more like II-7.

So what they are saying in a shorter form is that you need to have the sound of a II V functional cadence you need that move C-B-C for example in a C major II V I.

(There are in my opinion much better ways to teach this - but this is of itself correct info.)

The you go and check out actual music and realise people do all of those things. If you go listen to Joe Henderson he uses 13ths on -7 chords all the time. In fact 13 on -7 is kind of the Joe Henderson note. Wes loves the 4 on the dominant. It’s part of jazz to make things less V-I sometimes. It helps us be less hemmed in by the changes.

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[Christian Miller]

Tl;dr if you aren’t trying for functional harmony, there’s no reason you couldn’t use their mixolydian freely.

If you apply some of those voicings over a I chord using Ionian mode you may notice some dissonance. Which is cool, we’re all grown ups right?


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[AllanAllen]

Thanks for the clarification frabarmus and thanks for getting me all twisted up Christian.

RPjazz, that's interesting, the Jazz Theory book came up in another thread and I said I didn't really like it and it was eating at me why I would have bought it in the first place. Being one who doesn't have a passion for theory or analysis. It must have been after discussing the melodic minor thing with you.

[AllanAllen]

Yes (I guess, as I haven't seen RP's Melodic Minor scale of chords).

I haven't done it, yet, with the Melodic Minor... that's another task on my to do list.

Here’s my chart on that

[rpjazzguitar]

Levine's take on melodic minor was the major thing I got from the book. Worth the price just for that.

It opened up a lot of options. Ex: finding out that I could cover a susb9 chord (which I only played a couple of ways) with 6 other voicings that I already knew. And, multiply that by 7.

I wish I'd learned that at the time I was first learning all those grips. It still feels like thinking in my native language while translating laboriously to speak in another language.

It would have been helpful to have mp3s of the examples. I think somebody recorded them all and it was floating around the Internet, but I'm not sure of that.

But, after I read it, I played a tune that starts with two bars of Fmaj7 and two bars of Bb7#11 and I started subbing in Fmelmin voicings. They all worked, and there were some that got into my playing quite quickly -- which is not something that happens that often.

Oh ... I also found his presentation on upper structures to be helpful. Another bit of info that was pretty easy to apply. G7? Try Bbm. That sort of thing.

Oh, Allen, thanks for the diagrams. Turns out, I've been playing one of them wrong. I didn't realize it because the "wrong" note was still within the right melmin scale, but it wasn't the next one in moving the fourth-stack through the scale.

[Christian Miller]

Thanks for the clarification frabarmus and thanks for getting me all twisted up Christian.

Hey don’t blame me, that’s not the way I teach it. It twists everyone up.

If you haven’t come across this BS before, my advice is disregard and move on.

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[AllanAllen]

I saw this clip and now I'm trying to work through melodic minor 3nps fingerings.

Why you NEED the ALTERED scale - YouTube

Also

1. Pivot arpeggios on the major scale
2. Trying to internalize the changes for When Lights are Low and Lullaby of the Leaves
3. Playing through the charts for Friday's big band gig, I'm lucky enough to have access to charts away from the stand with this group.

Seeing it written out, I think I'm working on too many things at once.

[Stevebol]

I think I'll do about 30 seconds of yoga today.

[Rscudder58]

12 bar blues in 12 keys moving in fourths using only shell chords.


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